The joy of Christ’s resurrection is needed now more than ever in a time when war in Ukraine and other parts of the world makes the hope for peace seem like an illusion, Pope Francis said before giving his Easter blessing.

he joy of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead gives joy and strength to those who are called to bring peace, reconciliation and justice to the suffering and the downtrodden, Pope Francis said.

Mass graves and the deceased still lying along the roadside became a kind of “Way of the Cross” where Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, and Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, stopped and prayed.

Jesus invites everyone to repent and to turn swords into plowshares and missiles into factories and homes, the papal preacher said.

Before washing the feet of 12 inmates, Pope Francis told them and other prisoners that God never tires of forgiving anyone who asks.

The Catholic Church in Europe and other places will, as retired Pope Benedict XVI had said, be smaller and less influential, but the church’s mission and joy is not to increase numbers but to share the Gospel, Pope Francis told Jesuits in Malta.

With some 1,800 priests concelebrating and renewing the promises made at their ordinations, Pope Francis celebrated the chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica April 14.

Pope Francis blessed a special Easter basket during a private audience with Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly and his family at the Vatican April 11.

In Russia’s war on Ukraine, “the forces of evil” are clearly at work, leading to “abominable” attacks on innocent people and widescale destruction of their homes, Pope Francis said.

The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church asked Pope Francis to scrap plans to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross together during the pope’s Way of the Cross service at Rome’s Colosseum April 15.